"I have just flown 2500 miles to see the new Steven Spielberg movie. It is Saturday, June 27th and the time is midnight, but my body clock says it is 3:00 AM.

I have never done a review under these circumstances before, but then again, I have never seen a film like this before. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN may not be the best film that I have ever seen, but it surely has affected me more than any previous film. If SAVING PRIVATE RYAN does not get recognized as the best film of the year (and possibly decade) there is no justice or common sense at the Motion Picture Academy.

About twenty years ago someone showed me an article in Hustler titled, "This Is The Real Obscenity" Under that heading were some almost undescribable pictures. The first picture looked, at first like a puddle of red oatmeal.

I had no context in which to understand what I was looking at. Suddenly, I noticed an eyeball floating in the red mess. I got sick. This was a picture of what was left of a soldier in Vietnam after being struck with a mortar shell. I had never seen a war picture like this because war is always sanitized. It is as if there was a huge international conspiracy to clean up war in the media. To make it acceptable.

Are film makers conscious of this? I don't know. Surely veterans return to our shores with hair raising tales of the horror. But somehow this horror never reaches the screen. It never reaches the consciousness of Mr & Mrs America.

This conspiracy (if there is one) will end with the release of Mr.Spielberg's masterpiece. We have all been told in school about the horror and carnage that our soldiers faced on the Omaha beach on June 6th, 1944, but this is the rare case where words, usually so much more powerful that movies, just seem to fail.

Nothing that you have ever heard or seen will prepare you for the opening sequence of Mr. Spielberg's film. With the skill of the master film maker that he is, the technology of modern day cinema and the stereophonic zing of bullets zipping by your head, you will witness, for the first time(unless you were actually there) what war really is. The horror is so intense and the gore so grimly realistic, that even the most jaded viewer will go into an instant state of shock. I will never, ever recover completely from the opening scene of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.

Eventually, of course, our boys do take the beach. It is here that the "meat" of the story begins. A Naval secretary discovers that within a few days of each other, three of the four Ryan brothers have been killed. How can the Ryan's mother be told? What can any army general say to a mother who has just lost three sons and who has a forth that is missing. The general orders the remaining Ryan brother to be found and returned to his mother AT ANY COST!

This job fall upon a captain, played by Tom Hanks. Hanks must select a group of men to search out and return the remaining brother. Now, I like Tom Hanks, but I must admit that after GUMP, I couldn't see him in the role of Captain Miller. Shame on me. Under Steven Spielberg's brilliant direction, Hanks turns in a performance so powerful and so believable, that this reviewer cannot do it justice. The same can be said of all of the other cast members. Can you imagine Edward Burns turning in a powerful performance? Well he is superb, along with everyone else and everything else in this groundbreaking movie.

As the eight soldiers go for their walk in the sun, we are exposed to just about every stereotypical scene ever portrayed in a war film. But in Mr. Spielberg's capable hands this material turns out to be a powerful work of genius. The film never lets up. The pressure of unexpected instant death for the entire 2hrs and 45 minutes of this stunning film is just about unbearable. There is no comic relief in RYAN. There is no chance for the viewer to recharge his or her emotions. This is as close as any civilian will ever come to the nightmare that is WAR.

As the film came to a close, the one thought that occupied my mind was, I must not cry and embarrass myself in front of the other critics. But, as the sobs around me got louder and louder, I broke down like the others. There are some that will say that Mr. Spielberg is merely pushing buttons. To this I respond, "SO WHAT?" That's what movies are all about. When I go to a movie, I want to get moved. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN does that like no other film I have seen.

RYAN is a shocker. It is the most powerful anti-war statement to be seen on film since (and perhaps including) ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. But BE WARNED! This film will stay with you for a long, long time. Many viewers will even be sickened. And this is as it should be because war IS sickening.

The question will certainly come up as to which is better, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN or SCHINDLER'S LIST. My response: SCHINDLER'S LIST is about an event universally accepted as a tragedy and a war crime. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is about a war that is called "the last great war" and is considered to be an heroic epoch. Taking this into account, I feel SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is a far more powerful and important film.

The most powerful and moving film of the decade. A work of pure and intense genius.   Don't miss it."

By: Paul Wunder